MPF Awards

The Investment Manager Awards is designed to recognize underlying managers of MPF Schemes in various asset classes and strategies for delivering sustained, consistent outperformance on a risk-adjusted basis while maintaining excellence in Benchmark's pillars. Benchmark and the buy-side community believe that investment strategies are best evaluated holistically rather than over-emphasizing past returns and risk metrics. In that light, our assessment is based on multiple facets of portfolio and risk management, and corporate strength. We see these facets as interlocking pieces forming a whole picture. Benchmark's five pillars are Investment Approach, Performance & Risk, Portfolio Management, Stewardship, and Corporate Quality.

Winning Titles

The strategy with the highest final score in its peer group wins the Best-in-Class award. Up to two Outstanding Achiever awards will be given to Strategies within a 5% margin below the Best-in-Class

Although this program assesses investment strategies rather than funds, we ask for factsheets and other information related to the oldest share class of a flagship fund so that all candidates can be measured by the same metrics. The flagship strategy must:

>  have a minimum 3 years track record

>  disclose the most recent full holdings

>  provide a prospectus or fact sheet

The underlying strategy submitted does not have to be an authorized fund in Hong Kong. It can be a UCITS, SICAV, etc…

In consultation with our panel of 70-80 buy-side jurors, consisting of mainly private and premier banking gatekeepers/fund selectors, family offices, and institutional investors, plus a handful of independent consultants and researchers – we’ve designed a scoring system with a questionnaire containing multiple options and binary answers. There are 3 levels of scores, the final score is a weighted combination of Levels I, II, and III:

Level I Score: Fund Questionnaire
Level II: Score: Juror Assessment
Level III Score: The Gatekeeper Forum

Overall Score = 60% (Level I) + 30% (Level II)+ 10% (Level III)

Level I Score: All participants are scored based on their selections of the options preset for each question in the Fund Questionnaire. The scores are also pre-defined for each option in each question along the five key pillars.

Level II Score: Jurors who have signed up/assigned to a particular peer group will score based on their experience with the fund house and team, and the overall Level I scores presented to them. Scoring at this level could be relatively subjective, as each juror has his/her selection priorities, often guided by their underlying needs. For example, a private banking gatekeeper would have a different priority on criteria selection versus a single-family office.

Level III Score: All participants are invited to join The Gatekeeper’s Forum to present their strategies to the jurors. This is a highly curated forum where only the PM, CIO, or Product Specialists are invited to meet the Senior Gatekeepers in person. During the 30 minute session, a panel of 6-8 jurors will ask in-depth questions along the five key pillars for further understanding of the team practices. Jurors will score based on their satisfaction with the information received during the session.

Other Rules
Submitting Materials for Multiple Strategies – Separate groups of jurors will evaluate different product types, so please make sure there is one submission per strategy. DO NOT send one submission to represent different strategies. Please submit separate entries for each strategy, with the exception of Pillar 5-Corporate Strength.

Merging Categories To ensure the quality of the awards, categories with less than three funds participating may be merged to a larger category of the same kind without prior notice

  1. Asia Equity
  2. Asia Pacific Equity
  3. China Equity
  4. Europe Equity
  5. Global Equity
  6. Greater China Equity
  7. Hong Kong Equity
  8. Japan Equity
  9. United States Equity
  10. Sector Equity
  1. Asia Fixed Income
  2. Asia Pacific Fixed Income
  3. Global Fixed Income
  4. Hong Kong Dollar Fixed Income
  5. RMB Fixed Income
  1. Aggressive Mixed Assets (81% to 100% Equity)
  2. Growth Mixed Assets (61% to 80% Equity)
  3. Balanced Mixed Assets (41% to 60% Equity)
  4. Conservative Mixed Assets ( 21% to 40% Equity)
  5. Uncategorized Mixed Assets
  6. Default Investment Strategy – Core Accumulation 
  7. Default Investment Strategy – Age 65 Plus

The ESG Integration Award recognizes investment management companies that demonstrate commitments to integrate ESG into their investment decision-making throughout the investment process for the entire suites of their products, investment activities and reinforces ESG's role in Long-Term Value Creation.

Judges will be looking for qualities in:

  • the systematic approach: innovative approaches to applying environmental, social, and governance (ESG) analysis to the funds being managed across the board, despite the sectors, countries, and asset classes
  • the team buy-in and implementation: how multiple teams come to a consensus for the performance across the board
  • disclosure: disclosed policies and procedures for integrating ESGinformation and metrics into the investment process communicated to investee companies
  • execution: resources, constraints, and timeline management
  • outcomes: How are results measured the key learnings from this approach

Multiple funds of the candidates will be drawn randomly from BlueOnion* to demonstrate the walking the talks of the fund houses’ ESG, GC, and Temperature performances against their peers.

*BlueOnion is Benchmark's disruptive fund research platform hosting over 290,000 funds with sustainability data, including ESG, Global Compact (GC), and Temperature Score in 67 countries.

www.blueonion.today

This award recognizes fund houses putting the welfare of the beneficiaries at the forefront. This award is given to the fund houses that embrace Responsible Investing and practice Active Ownership and integrate ESG into their ownership policies and practices while driving positive real-world goals. Apart from illustrating their collaborative engagement initiatives with the investees, they prioritize outcomes at the society/economy-wide scales, such as addressing climate change and corruption, rather than purely focusing on pure risks and returns of the holdings in the portfolio.

Judges will be looking for qualities in:

  • the foundation of the practical stewardship principles
  • ongoing development and implementation of the stewardship policies
  • monitoring and assessment techniques of investee companies
  • the collaboration goals and engagement principles with investee companies and investors
  • how voting rights are exercised
  • how ESG is promoted as long-term value creation
  • level of transparency, disclosure, and reporting

Multiple funds of the candidates will be drawn randomly from BlueOnion* to demonstrate the walking the talks of the fund houses’ ESG, GC, and Temperature performances against their peers.

*BlueOnion is Benchmark’s disruptive fund research platform hosting over 290,000 funds with sustainability data, including ESG, Global Compact (GC), and Temperature Score in 67 countries.

www.blueonion.today

The MPF Trustee Awards recognize that Trustees regulated by the MPFA  have demonstrated excellence in discharging their fiduciary duties, creativity, and leadership in the following categories.  The firm with the highest score in the respective category will win the Best-in-Class award. Up to two Outstanding Achiever awards will be given to providers within a 5% margin below the Best-in-Class.

The “Compliance” category aims to identify best practice MPF Trustees who go beyond the most minimal regulatory requirement and proactively build an effective defense system for internal control that prepares the organization to face unanticipated market events and disruptive trends. The critical criteria in this category include the following. Please explain:

How your firm’s compliance addresses the various business functions:

  • Process and rationale of integrating compliance into business functions
  • Segregation between Trustee's and Sponsor's duties and responsibilities
  • New product due diligence, onboarding, monitoring, and development
  • Meeting international ESG demand and applying global normative assessment
  • Product and other training for intermediaries
  • IT and technology framework, including data collection, data privacy, data processing
  • the role and responsibility of the CCO
  • The transparency between the business owners, process owners, and audit the lines of defense

The “Risk Management” category aims to identify best practice MPF Trustees who have best-in-class risk control infrastructures, practices, and outcomes. Please demonstrate your firm’s foresight, vision, and accomplishments on the following:

The submission criteria include qualities below:

  • Effective appointment, termination, and oversight of Service Providers for services delegated
  • Explicit policies covering product responsibilities, customer data privacy, customer satisfaction measurement
  • Integration of risk management into key functions, from the front to the back offices, for greater competitiveness and operational safety and efficiency
  • Conflict management between outsourced vendors and the Trustee within the same financial group
  • Employing digital innovation while mitigating concerns derived from cyber-attacks
  • Protection of data privacy and the vulnerabilities that emerged from automation
  • Digitization and global expansion of your firm’s digital ecosystems
  • Governance protocol for decision-making processes

The “Corporate Governance” category aims to identify best practice MPF Trustees with a robust governance framework, infrastructure, and an operating model.  The process examines the critical functions of the board’s role, responsibility and compensation, risk culture, people, and talents, processes, and technologies while maintaining a diverse board of directors. 

The submission includes the qualities below:

  • The risk management and culture of your organization
  • Senior executives’ code of ethics, audit committee independence, Chairman, CEO Board separation, board diversity policy, etc…
  • The Board Diversity Policy and your firm’s commitment to a diverse board
  • Relevant committees and their policies and practices
  • Your firm’s principles for managing both internal and external stakeholders’ interests
  • Your CRO and CCO’s reporting protocol 

This award  highlights the responsibilities that MPF trustees, as asset owners, have in helping to shape the world we live in.”  This award is given to the Trustees that embrace Responsible Investing and practice Active Ownership and integrate ESG into their ownership policies and practices while driving positive real-world goals.

Apart from illustrating their collaborative engagement initiatives with the underlying investment managers, they prioritize outcomes at the society/economy-wide scales, such as addressing climate change and corruption, rather than purely focusing on pure risks and returns of the holdings in the portfolio.

Judges will be looking for qualities in:

  • the foundation of the practical stewardship principles and sustainability issues identification
  • ongoing development and implementation of the responsible investment strategies and policies
  • monitoring and assessment techniques of the investment managers and  investee companies
  • the collaboration goals and engagement principles with the investment managers
  • how voting rights are exercised by the investment managers
  • how ESG is promoted as long-term value creation
  • level of transparency, disclosure, and reporting

Multiple funds of the underlying investment managers will be drawn randomly from BlueOnion* to demonstrate the walking the talks of the fund houses’ ESG, GC, and Temperature performances against their peers.

*BlueOnion is Benchmark’s disruptive fund research platform hosting over 290,000 funds with sustainability data, including ESG, Global Compact (GC), and Temperature Score in 67 countries.

www.blueonion.today

This Award recognizes an in-house team of an MPF Trustee that has demonstrated achievements in the following Service Levels and achievements: 

The submission criteria include qualities below:

  • Online Support: Whether the provider offers a streamlined onboarding process for new employee enrollment, whether forms are easily accessible, switching of funds is enabled, and the submission process is well organized through website and app access. 
  • Service Pledges: Please describe your service pledge to the employer, describing your service level, charges, administrative undertakings, updates on regulatory changes, etc.  Notes will be compared with the MPFA's Trustee Service Comparative Platform.
  • Communication and Reporting: Whether the portal/statement provides an interactive portfolio overview, performance, and risk figures accompanied by the company’s commentaries and messages, and keeping the employers abreast of new legislation and regulations.
  • Measuring Success: What are the key indicators used to measure client satisfaction, what mechanisms are used for collecting and measuring end customers’ feedback, what has been the attrition rate, and whether this effort demonstrates impressive growth for assets under administration

This Award recognizes an in-house team of an MPF Trustee that has demonstrated achievements in the following Service Levels and achievements: 

The submission criteria include qualities below:

  • Online Support: Whether the provider offers a streamlined onboarding process for new employee enrollment, whether forms are easily accessible, switching of funds is enabled, and the submission process is well organized through website and app access. 
  • Putting the Members First: Whether the process puts its end customers’ needs first and whether it has a structured approval process to ensure end customers’ satisfaction through tracking and improvements of end-customer satisfaction rates, customer retention rates, response time, and ability to provide accurate, precise and usable information.
  • Empowerment of Members: Whether there are tools to enable customers to do things themselves and become more engaged in the process – tracking their existing portfolio holdings, researching new investment opportunities, and comparing with other investments outside of the company’s.
  • Communication and Reporting: The portal/statement provides an interactive portfolio overview, performance, and risk figures accompanied by the company’s commentaries and messages.
  • Measuring Success: What are the key indicators used to measure client satisfaction, and what are the mechanisms for collecting and measuring end customers’ feedback
  • ECA Effort: Whether the team and process are robust enough to provide timely service to clients who actively utilize the benefits of ECA to manage their retirement account, and whether there is a mechanism to detect unusual and unethical behavior.
  • DIS Implementation: What are the proactive initiatives taken to educate the members on the implementation of DIS and whether a fair approach has been taken to inform the members of its pros and cons, and what factors they should consider when contemplating such strategies.

We are looking for a company that adopts best practices in recruiting, managing, and retaining the talent pool to meet the Social responsibilities in the realm of ESG. Companies that care deeply about their employees' health, safety, and wellness and have cultivated a healthy workplace should consider entering this category.

Judges will be looking for qualities in:

  • Retention: Ability to attract, retain, and develop human capital, as well as the exposure to risks of increased costs associated with high employee turnover or reduced productivity resulting from poor morale.
  • Engagement: Formal employee engagement channels, broad-based professional development, training opportunities, and implementing flexible work hours.
  • Benefits: Comprehensive compensation and benefits packages provide annual profit-sharing bonuses, regularly giving employees a substantial and concrete stake in the company’s success. It also offers incentives in short-term activities and benefits aligned to customers’ long-term interests and gifts.
  • Culture: The company empowers professional and personal growth by demonstrating strong leadership, communication, culture, and corporate social responsibility.
  • Training and Development: Explicit policies and execution that covers internal promotion, Supplier ESG Training, Career Development Policy, and Average # of training hours
  • Diversity and Inclusion: Best practice policies to broaden the pool of talent to include all genders, races, and ages.